Saturday, October 17, 2009

No, Actually, You Did Not Turn Out Okay

One of the stupidest things I read and hear is the "I (or my kids, spouse, dog, whatever) turned out okay" arguement. "I vaccinated my kids and they turned out okay." "I went to public school and I turned out okay." "I was spanked as a kid and I turned out okay." And, most recently, "I was carried around in a car seat and I turned out fine."

Um, no you didn't.

First, though, let's talk briefly about why that argument is illogical. I broke my wrist as a child and my wrist turned out fine. Doesn't mean I should let my son climb onto the roof. My friend was molested by her grandparents and she has turned out to be a smart, caring person. Doesn't mean child molestation doesn't do harm. A positive end doesn't mean the journey was good and should be repeated.
It's an answer that reinforces my suspicion that you don't think things through and that I should stop talking to you.

Nevertheless, for the sake of humor, let's discuss all these things that my imaginary conglomerate "you" have gone through and supposedly recovered from just fine. For all you folks who like to shoot first and ask questions later, this is not an attack on the people who do these things, it's an attack on using faulty reasoning as an excuse.

"I was vaccinated as a child and I turned out just fine."

When you were a kid, there were 10 vaccines on the schedule. Today there are 36, including a vaccination given immediately after birth that wasn't there 20 years ago. (source link) So, it 's irrelevant if you turned out fine.

"I was circumcized and I turned out fine (or another arguement we have heard, "I don't remember it, so it wasn't that traumatic)."

You lost the five most sensitive areas of your penis when you were circumcized, but since it happened to you before you had a chance to choose for yourself, you have no idea that you are missing anything. The foreskin barely retracts in the first few years of life because it is there to protect the penis from infections, so since you probably peed and pooped on a raw wound for the first few weeks of your life and then had exposure forever after that which was not intended by nature, you have actually spent your life MORE susceptible to infections, not less. Your penis also has scar tissue. Every cut male does.

Whether or not you remember it is, like the vaccination argument, irrelevant. When you were a child, it was still common practice to perform circumcisions without anesthetic. It was VERY painful and VERY traumatic, and research is only now starting to uncover what that does mentally to a child that carries over into adulthood.

"I was spanked as a child and I turned out fine."

This arguement is infuriating. Lots of people recover from childhood abuses. And lots of people think they did but still have problems they don't recognize, such as your insistence on not breaking the chain but carrying on this unloving and unpeaceful practice.

First of all, society suffers. "the percentage of children spanked has dropped from 90% to 10%, youth crime has decreased in Sweden since the mid-1990s, and violent crime has not gone up."

If you live in a state where corporal punishment is allowed in schools, your state also has higher murder rates, higher incarceration rates, more children living in poverty, and less adults with high school diplomas. (source link)

Second, if you are woman and were spanked as a child, you are more likely to accept violence from a male partner, and if you are a man spanked as a boy, you are more likely to use it against your female partner. (source link) Let's not forget, violence includes emotional abuse. "...spanking by parents also has negative emotional consequences for girls. "The intention of spanking is to cause pain and the causing of pain to girls and then saying 'I love you' is not healthy."...

"It is important to note that not all children who are spanked will develop negative social behaviors, just as not all heavy smokers will develop lung cancer, says Straus.

"I was carried around in a car seat instead of a baby sling and I turned out fine."

But your mother didn't. From Consumer Reports:

If you opt to use your infant car seat as a carrier, realize that it can be a killer on your wrists, elbow, lower back, and neck if you tote it by the handle or if you string it on your forearm like a handbag. “The greater the horizontal distance from the weight you’re carrying to your torso, the more stress on your joints, discs, ligaments, and muscles,” says Mary Ellen Modica, a physical therapist at Schwab STEPS Rehabilitation Clinics in Chicago, IL. “It’s equivalent to walking around with three or four full paint cans in one hand--something most people wouldn’t do, but they’ll carry a car seat that way.”

And it's possible you didn't really, and neither is your baby now:

"Infants transported that way use their head, neck, and shoulder muscles to stabilize themselves and establish stronger trunk stability. Those muscles may develop sooner in babies who aren’t carried around in a car seat."

As an added bonus, the person who recently said this called bucket car seats "super convenient." Really? Try carrying your sleeping infant in one of those through a security check point in an airport terminal.

In addition, you missed out on the documented benefits of babywearing. Babies who are frequently carried, either in arms or in a sling, cry less, show "enhanced visual and auditory awareness," experience less anxiety and frustration, receive more exposure to language and the day to day activities of family life, and Dr. Williams Sears even claims they are smarter. (source link)

Also, seriously, don't try to get through an airport without a baby sling.

"I or my baby was formula fed and I/he/she turned out fine."

First of all, be glad that you live in an industrialized nation where you have the luxury of "choosing" between breatfeeding and using clean water and sterile bottles to give your baby formula.

Secondly, whether you like it or not, thousands upon thousands of babies die all over the world because of formula, including in the United States.

"A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics, (May 2004), titled "Breastfeeding and the Risk of Postneonatal Death in the United States," reports a 21% reduction in infant death for having EVER breastfed, meaning 27% more infant deaths occur when no breastmilk is provided. The impact is underreported for two reasons. First, deaths in the first month, the greatest amount of deaths, were not counted. Second, the exclusiveness of breastfeeding is a huge factor and is not part of this measurement.

When they compare 3 months of any breastfeeding to less or no breastfeeding, the reported reduction is 36%. That translates actually to 56% more infant deaths for those receiving mostly formula! If they were to compare 3 months of exclusive breastfeeding to no breastmilk, the reduction would have been closer to 50% — meaning Double the deaths for withholding of breastmilk: The same number as in my prior analysis BELOW:

(ADDED April 2006): This study and my below article are about industrialized nations. A more-recent large-scale study taking place in poor areas of Ghana, India, and Peru found a shocking 10.5 times the number of deaths for those not breastfed versus those exclusively breastfed. Partially breastfed infants had 2.5 times the risk of death as those exclusively breastfed. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2005." (source link)

That's a lot of babies who did not turn out fine (or alive).

But, the reality is, sometimes formula is necessary. Adoption, low or no milk supply (rare but does happen), in these instances, formula becomes the lifesaver. Instead of fighting the reality of formula's inferiority, parents should use that information as a tool for discovering the things they need to do to compensate, to build the immune system, to nourish brain growth, and to supplement with skin-to-skin contact. Don't use tap water (heard in the news about how many pharmaceuticals are frequently found in tap water?), use BPA-free bottles, supplement the DHAs, and stop yelling at facts for disagreeing with your wishfull thinking.

"I had an epidural and my baby turned out fine."

I had an epidural and my baby's heart rate dropped to 55 and we had to have an emergency c-section. Apparently, that's not an unusual risk - epidurals can cause a mother's blood pressure to drop, which causes the baby's heart rate to drop, which snowballs into a lot of other "interventions," and by "interventions" I mean "major abdominal surgery from which it takes weeks and sometimes years to recover." I still have no feeling around my surgical scar.

I can't blame anyone for getting an epidural because my own two labors were so horrific that one of my evaluating therapists diagnosed me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If I ever give birth again, I am going to get an epidural.

But I don't kid myself about the risks, to both myself and my baby. Respiratory distress is a side effect, and boy did I have it. Babies born under the influence of anesthesia are much more likely to have a difficult time breastfeeding successfully. My son struggled with it for a long time. My daughter, who had much less exposure to anesthesia before being born, was a champion nurser. But that's anecdotal - to read about the research, click here. There is much to be aware of before making the serious decision to be heavily medicated during labor and birth.

"I went to public school and I turned out fine."

If you went to 12 years of public school and managed to avoid all bullying, loneliness, unfair or incompetent teachers, sexual harassment, drug and alcohol abuse, racism, sexism, crowded rooms, outdated or absence of materials, indoor pollution, loss of sleep and social interaction, limits on available subjects, and endlessly boring lectures devoid of creativity or flexibility with regards to different learning styles, then you are awesome, lucky, and probably lying.

Even if you support the public school system, you must accept and acknowledge the many limitations of a system that pays superintendents more than senators while teachers still ask parents to donate school supplies and often themselves qualify for government assistance.

We are endlessly putting money into education and none of that seems to actually reach teachers and students, but gets circulated among the bureaucrats and funneled out to curriculum developers who have no concept of how children actually learn. And now, children are spending weeks and sometimes months just learning how to take tests - a tactic which isn't helping.

""[H]ome schooled minorities and whites both score on average in the 87th percentile on reading tests. In public schools, whites significantly outpace minorities in reading scores (whites: 57th percentile; blacks: 28th percentile; Hispanics: 28th percentile). In math, home schooled whites score only marginally better than minorities do (82nd percentile vs. 77th percentile). In public schools, the disparity is huge: 58th percentile for whites, 24th percentile for blacks, and 29th percentile for Hispanics.

"Public school officials have some explaining to do. Why is that despite their constant lip service to the goal of equal opportunity, public schools continue to deliver abysmally low academic quality to minority students? Home schoolers have broken out of the ugly, demeaning stereotype of racial underachievement. Why can't government schools do the same?

"Whatever the reasons for the dilemma of public-education failure, they don't include inadequate funding. For each home-school child, the average schooling cost is $546 per year; the annual public-school per-pupil expenditure is $5,325.Both figures exclude the costs of the building in which each child is taught."

"...students taught by parents who have not finished high school score 30 percentiles higher than students in public schools."" - Michael P. Farris, President of the Home School Legal Defense Fund

As a personal side note, I can trace a lot of my life's worst decisions to the training I received in public school, including from the Algebra teacher who told me he'd give me a higher grade if I wore shorter skirts. Imagine the useful things I learned from that nugget of wisdom! Who knew corporate America doesn't operate all that differently!

I could go on and on through many more topics, but my point remains clear - you supposedly turning out fine after a potentially damaging experience does not count as actual evidence that something is good or okay. I know, the moment those words come out of your mouth, that we cannot have a reasonable discussion and that, for the time being, you have stopped thinking.

If it's any consolation, I found your blog through that hateful idiot's blog (not that I'm a fan, but he/she had a Montessori tag and showed up on my blog surfer).

Let me just say HURRAY to your post! I would be rich if I had a dime for every stupid parent who argues against Montessori because they "turned out OK" in public school, starting with my sister-in-law. Or argues against organic food because they "turned out OK" after eating Kraft Mac & cheese. And don't even get me started on vaccines...

I often wonder about the prevalence of obesity, allergies, chemical sensitivities, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic constipation, etc.... and wonder if it can't be traced back at least in part to the unnecessary use of formula and forcing early solids.

And let's not even talk about rates of divorce and depression, and how that might relate to detachment parenting. Americans have SO not turned out okay.

Awesome post! Jill, a lot of those issues can be related to gut damage which formula can cause. A mom who is informed about formula, but unable to breastfeed can take other steps to help her baby's gut be healthy.

Thanks for the complements, and yes, Sarah, you are always free to repost anything I post.

Montessorimatters - yes, that I was one of the stupid things on that blog I was going to refute before I reminded myself not to take the bait. Really?? Your kid went to Montessori school and all he learned to do was cut paper? My 3 year old is learning to read and my 1 year old can already dress herself. Let's ignore the rips on homeschooling and unschooling, too. OY!

And as for formula, I often wonder if Connor's digestion problems came from the formula given him in the hospital against my wishes.

As I've mentioned many times, my own sister's milk never really came in because my dad died a few days after her baby was born. She tried many different things to bring her milk in and it never happened. She became an expert in the effects of nutrition on her daughter as a result. I never once heard her say, "it doesn't matter." She knew it mattered, and she did something about it.

And when she gave birth the second time and breastfed right away, I was so happy for her!!

Well articulated and mindful enough to hint at that women have a right to choose and that sometimes we are forced into a choice.

My only contention is about public schooling, where you say,"probably lying"If your issue is with faulty reasoning, then I have to point out that this is enormously presumptious. Right? ;)

As for the formula/gut issue debate in the comments - sorry, but many exclusively bf babies have similar issues.This is similar reasoning that you're refuting here.I've heard plenty of attachment parents, and similar, make claims such as - beause I did X this is why my child is so good/healthy/sleeps well, and on and on.Fact - you don't know, just as I don't know that I turned out ok from going to public school. :D

Welcome! If you stick around you'll see I make frequent use of sarcasm. I'm sure there are people out there who loved every single moment of their 12 years of public school. I was smothered by it, and I know my children would be, too.

As for formula/breastmilk, my son had gust issues, but he had a dairy allergy we weren't aware of, so you can imagine how much he screamed i the beginning when they gave him formula, which is straight cow's milk. He got it in lesser quantities from me through my breastmilk until we did an elimination diet. The reality is, though, human milk is designed for human babies and cow's milk is designed for baby cows. It doesn't take a degree in biology to figure out that breastmilk is going to be more digestible for a human child than cow's milk.

And a breastfeeding mom can change what she eats to change the make-up of her milk. Formula is not adjustable. It's the same flavor and contents, day after day after day.

(It's 1:15am and I'm stuck in looking-for-links land over here, which is how I found you, and my eyes have calcified and my brains are dribbling out my ears, or I'd say something coherent as well as gushing, but for now: gush.)

I understand that. I've had some mamas get pulled through the ringer for posting about attachment parenting and natural family living. If you don't want to subject yourself to that, that's okay.

But I do want to encourage you to speak your truth, no matter what kind of criticism you receive, because it may help someone else who hasn't yet made up their mind. There will always be people upset with us when we say it's bad for them to put their baby on a schedule or circumcize their son. But there will also be those who are grateful for you for saying it, and will stand by your side for it.

Visit TopHat's link (she's the first commenter here). She organized a Facebook nurse in, among other things, and receives LOTS of anger from other people. But, she also receives LOTS of love from other people. I think you will find her blog inspiring!

Have you read this article, Alisa? http://www.naturalchild.org/jan_hunt/spanked.html

"I Was Spanked And I'm Fine!"Made me think of you :)

For the record, I am NOT "fine"--and I had a wonderful childhood with no spanking and raised in a mostly respectful way. But still, I find myself looking for approval and being a perfectionist--not happy to share what I've done until I know it's perfect--because of my parent's (and schools') use of praise. That's the hard one for me to get over--something that most people don't even think about! (a la Alfie Kohn's "Punnished by Rewards" and "Unconditional Parenting") But hell, people are SOOOO in denial if they think they are "fine"! EVERYONE has stuff to work through!

Wonderful post! Oh, the things I've heard over the years. Now that we're homeschooling, one of my favorites is when people tell me there is no way I can teach my kindergartner everything she needs to know. Really? After thirteen years of public school (not counting college here) I can't teach my five year old what she needs to know? Sounds like maybe the school system must have failed me if I was smart enough to graduate but not smart enough to educate a five year old.

So awesome. Thank you for this, you've done the community a real service here. I find myself, as a first time mamma, very passionate but stupidly inarticulate about these issues when they come up in conversation. The *only* thing I would have loved to have seen a paragraph about would have been scheduled feeding, but Im sure everyone has *something* they would have liked to have seen included ;) Well done.

One of my fb friends had this blog on a link and I've only read this post and honestly it gives me no desire to read anything else you've written. Ok, maybe just a wee bit to see just what else you have to say.Your post is mostly based on personal experiences and a couple of tidbits of old, biased data. Not that I disagree with you on everything and of course, this is your blog, therefore your opinion, but you seem to present the attitude that people who do not live the way you do and make the choices you make are harming their children. Yes, you may carry your baby in a sling instead of a car seat, then again not vaccinating your children is exposing them and others to disease. There were ten vaccines when said person in your example was a baby. Sure, but have are you aware of the number of emerging diseases lately, and the increased ability to spread them from continent to continent? I know your aim is to advocate a certain way of life and if you think that's best for your family, that's good. Just don't go about dismissing other people's way of doing things as if they haven't thought about what they are doing and are doing it with reasons. Also, some people may not have the luxury of staying home to teach their kids while surfing the internet to find articles to support their blogs about the ills of public school and other things that don't fit into their idea of a perfect world.

Anonymous - I specifically wrote "For all you folks who like to shoot first and ask questions later, this is not an attack on the people who do these things, it's an attack on using faulty reasoning as an excuse." to sort of head off comments like yours. This post was simply about the inadequate use of "I turned out okay" as a defense for certain behaviors. It wasn't meant as a comprehensive list of evidence for or against anything. Those kinds of posts, however, are abundant here.

Our Splendid Adventure - I get that, too, and it's very insulting. I'm pretty sure I don't need a teaching degree to tell my kids the difference between a solid, gas and liquid, let alone how to pronounce the letter B.

"I wouldn't allow my children to have any vaccinations, and they turned out okay."

"I homeschooled my kids, and they turned out okay."

I agree with the point you are making about logic. However, that illogical form of argument is also used by anti-vaccination advocates and those who think homeschooling is for everyone.

Science and statistics have given us tools to find out what the facts actually are, and logic is hard, even when you know more facts. You did a good job of showing how to use more facts logically, when you talked about carrying babies in slings to minimize the horizontal distance from the body core.

Vaccination is a particularly tough one, because while excessive vaccination can have risks, the lack of protection promoted by anti-vax extremists is even more risky. Finding the safest ways to vaccinate our population is the superior path.

Alisa, kind of off topic, but another thought about your son's digestive issues is that children born by cesarean are more prone to those issues, even if exclusively breastfed (as my eldest was, and is my only child to have allergies and digestive issues, etc) because a cesarean born child isn't exposed to the proper colonizing bacteria while being born. :-( Just another fun gift of the cesarean that keeps on givin'!

You have such a hateful blog. You seem to think that not vaccinating your children is ok. Apparently, spreading diseases across our country is ok with you. While I may vaccinate my child, helping to eradicate such diseases, you choose to let your children, who will probably end up with autism anyway (because obviously you're on *that* bandwagon) expose my children to and spread or even die from diseases because of your ignorance. You say that circumcised boys have no choice in the matter, which is true, but children of dumbass parents who don't vaccinate don't have a choice either. Also, by homeschooling your children, you are cutting them off from social interaction. And don't tell me that they hang out with other homeschooled children, because none of them are social either. Furthermore, you speak about taking a sleeping baby through airport security in a car seat and how inconvenient it is. Apparently you haven't been through airport security recently or you would realize that even if your baby is in a sling, you still have to remove the baby from the sling, take the sling off your person and run it through the xray machine and walk through the machine yourself before putting the sling and baby back on your person. Lastly, you have a flowchart for circumcision saying that a parent should not circumcise their sons. You go on to say that boys are unknowingly losing the 5 most sensitive areas of their penis when they lose their foreskin. If they don't know what they're missing, then it shouldn't be an issue, right? Right. Believe me, you don't want to get me started on breastfeeding in public...

You agree that children do not have a choice in circumcision. Other than that, nothing you said is based on fact or science. Not even the airport security thing, which we did a few months ago - you only have to take the sling off if you don't want to do a pat down.

'Ignorant' is bliss for those who choose to mutilate and pollute their children's bodies. They are the best trolls EVER!!!! So miserable, just love spreading their hate... If they ate organically there would be some fine compost available via "the interwebby".

Laughing my fucking ass off and wishing I still was breastfeeding a toddler so I could do it right in the troll's face.

Number 1- I'm not a troll. I just have a valid opinion and you don't have a valid response, so you decide to be immature with your "cough cough" shit.

Number 2- At least I am not a coward who tried to take my own life. Only cowards do such things.

Number 3- To the person who wanted to give you some "troll spray" I'd like to say the following: I did not "mutilate" my child's body and I'm not sure what makes you think I "pollute" my child's body just because I don't want him getting a disease than can be prevented and to be protected against the children of you crunchy, tree-hugging people that choose to let your foreskin hanging, barefooted, undisciplined, nipple hanging children go unvaccinated, thus spreading diseases which had previously been irradicated by vaccines. We were all vaccinated and damn if we're not all still alive and doing well. And, if you weren't vaccinated, perhaps some disease has gotten in your head. One where you believe it is right to expose other mothers' children to illness.

And, btw, when I see mothers in public with their breast exposed, no matter the child's age, I do say something. It is not necessary to pull your tit out for everyone to have to be around. Also, if I see a mother with a child old enough to ask for tit, then I tell the child to grow up and drink milk out of a cup like most other toddlers their age. Children who are breastfed past a certain age are those who become rapists and fetishists.

Lastly, actually, I *did* turn out ok. I just happen to have an opinion which doesn't align with yours. And judging from others' comments, I'm not the only one with a differing opinion.

I'm publishing your comment just because I think it is important to publicize how fucked up you are.

Insulting the mentally ill is one of the most ignorant and low-brow things you can do.

You're not a Christian. Christians like you are the reason people like me aren't Christian anymore. You walk around sexualizing mothers and infants, you refuse to offer any actual evidence for any of your claims, and you stalk people who don't agree with you and leave contentious and unsubstantiated bullshit in the comments, and then you go back to your self-righteous blog and congratulate yourself. You are not of Christ. You are of the devil.

You can email me all you want but I will not longer be posting your comments. But these are here so everyone can see what a liar you are. Your own blog says formula feeders don't bash breastfeeders, yet here you are. I have never bashed formula feedres, because my sister couldn't make milk so she had to supplement, and because a lot of my friends are adoptive/foster parents. Your blog says churches shouldn't turn away people who only come at Easter because it gives Christians a bad name, yet here you are, degrading people with mood disorders and going out of your way to make sure people's feelings are hurt.

If you actually looked at any of my links, you would have to take back what you say about me having no proof. I have doctors, the World Health Organization, peer reviewed medical journals, and even religion on my side. The New Testament says circumcision is no longer necessary in order that Christians may distinguish themselves from non-Christians. And what do you have? Nothing, so you resort to play ground bully tactics with the hopes that no one will notice that you're full of shit.

I am copying and pasting everything you have written here. It is forever saved so that anyone who searches for you also knows that your heart is hard, bitter and the exact opposite of Christian.

I have over 100 followers here, 130 on my blog reader, and 150 on facebook. You have 4. You want to start influencing people, changing minds, getting people to see your side and walk a mile in your shoes? Take your own advice and start acting Christian.

I just wanted to tell you that while there are some differefnces in how I personally do things, I think you were informative; not judgemental. There is nothing wrong with doing what you know is best for your child and it's great that you aren't insecure about your decisions. I didn't see anything outdated or wrong in the links you posted and the things you talked about. Hopefully hateful words from insecure people haven't hurt you. The proof of her insecurity is in the way she lashes out. I do not find it necessary to bash people who formula feed just because I choose breastfeeding. Ultimately other pRents are going to make the choices that they feel work best for their household and however I get a little annoyed myself when they try to justify their choices, which wouldn't be necessary to begin with if they were completely confident in their decision, with things that are false or irrational. If you ever want to talk to anyone, I love making new friends, paricularly educated parents who make choices similar to mine. :)

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About Me

"A child whose life is full of the threat and fear of punishment is locked into babyhood. There is no way for him to grow up, to learn to take responsibility for his life and acts. Most important of all, we should not assume that having to yield to the threat of our superior force is good for the child's character. It is never good for anyone's character."